A good chair. I know it's not technically a gadget but if you're spending half of your day on the computer you should spend on a good chair with proper lumbar support. Your back will thank you.
Most gamer chairs are fine but they're overly expensive. My chair is just a high quality office chair I grabbed from a local store. Super comfy and relatively cheap.
When I was last shopping for a chair, a "gamer" chair was, by far, the best chair that I could find for my size (average height, but stocky and overweight). None of the chairs at my local office store went up far enough for my knees and the arm rests did not support my elbows at table level.
I am sure that their are high end office chairs that would fit me, but I did not want to do much research. I had just read a good overview of gaming chairs from Ars Technica and just went off of that.
Every chair I have had at work has the same problem. At one job, they had ergonomics experts come in to help set up our desks at a new office. The expert sat me down, fiddled with my chair, and apologized because it was hopeless.
The issue is, yeah they're comfortable, but they're not comfortable in a good way for your body. You slouch and fuck your spine up. Also you look like a teenager, do you have a racecar bed too?
It's not just about comfort, it's about it not messing up your back long-term.
A bean bag is pretty comfy, but if you work in one 40h a week, your spine will be dust within a year.
Unfortunately the best chairs are even more expensive than gaming chairs. As an example, Herman Miller's Aeron has been rated as one of the best designed chairs for over 2 decades and costs over a grand. Imagine that with gamer tax added to it: basically no one would buy it. So they simply don't make chairs of that quality level to sell to that target demographic, it would not make economic sense to.
I understand that they might be comfy to a few people, but for most they're total shit. Also not that expensive, since a proper quality office chairs cost over 1k.
Good call out. Aeron’s are twice the price and the Mira is a great chair too. Tech startups LOVE to splurge on high end chairs and then they liquidate when they go under. That’s how I’ve gotten mine.
There are a few companies on eBay that sell refurb Aerons. I got a like new on for $400. Not exactly cheap, but waaaaay less than retail and comparable to the fancy “gamer” chairs.